Modi 3.0 must heed history and seek to avert border war with China

Tough foreign policy choices for Indian PM, who must also decide whether to tilt fully towards the US.

- Ravi Velloor

Hours before the formal announcement of Cabinet responsibilities in the third Narendra Modi-led government on the evening of June 10, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar tweeted a picture of himself calling on the visiting Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu.

India's foreign minister was not so much jumping the gun as hitting the ground running. Indeed, it was imperative he did so. Reassuring as it is for the world to see Mr Modi retaining one of his favourite ministers in the key portfolio for which Dr Jaishankar is so obviously well-suited, there is little question that India's foreign policy needs urgent and decisive tending.

Too many issues are up in the air, top of which are deeply fraught ties with China. There's a distinct cooling of relations with the United States, and some of its key allies such as Canada and Australia, where momentum gathered over a quarter of a century needs to be restored.

Fresh calculations are called for on the swiftly evolving Russia-China axis.

As for the immediate neighbourhood, there's much there that needs fixing too.

Dr Muizzu had come to power in November 2023 vowing to reverse the Maldives' "India first" policy, and one of his first acts had been to ask New Delhi to withdraw its security personnel from his islands. In March, his government signed a pact to receive free military assistance from China. Dr Jaishankar has plenty on his hands.

Mr Modi's feat in securing a third consecutive term as prime minister has been described as equalling Jawaharlal Nehru's record, set in 1962. That is indeed the case, even if Nehru's third mandate was overwhelming, unlike Mr Modi's this time when his Bharatiya Janata Party lost its stand-alone parliamentary majority and survives on the support of coalition partners.

But there is another reason this comparison merits mention.

MEMORIES OF 1962